This invention relates to an offsetting discharging apparatus with an aligning member or a sheet discharge apparatus that discharges sheets discharged from an image forming apparatus such as copiers, printers, facsimile machines or a combination of two or more of these, to a storage tray.
Conventionally, sheet discharge apparatuses that are mounted to image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, printers and facsimiles or a combination of two or more of these, and that form aligned sheet bundles urged toward an aligning member such as a side fence by rotating bodies such as rollers, paddles and belts for aligning each sheet fed to a storage tray from the image forming apparatus and for finishing aligned sheet bundles using staples, punching holes or by applying glue, are well known.
These sheet discharge apparatuses, for example a system described in Japanese Patent Publication (Tokkai) No. 228471, are composed to move sheets toward an alignment reference member by touching each sheet with rotating bodies such as rollers, paddles or belts used for alignment after completely discharging the sheets to a storage tray from a discharge means such as discharge rollers used to discharge each sheet to a storage tray.
In the sheet discharge apparatus described above, it is structured to move sheets toward an alignment reference member by touching each sheet with rotating bodies such as rollers, paddles or belts used for alignment after completely discharging sheets to a storage tray from a discharge means such as discharge rollers used to discharge each sheet to a storage tray. Therefore, there is wasted time for moving the aforementioned rotating bodies to a position for contacting the sheet, and for driving the rotating bodies after moving to the contact position.
An object of the present invention is to provide a sheet discharge apparatus and an image forming apparatus equipped with the same that touch sheets while driving rotating bodies such as rollers, paddles or belts, or the like, for alignment while discharging the sheet from a discharge means such as discharge rollers, to a storage tray, and applies the alignment action by the rotating bodies such as rollers, paddles or belts, etc. for alignment on the sheets immediately after the sheets are discharged to the storage tray without a time-lag, to alleviate the problem of the prior art.